How much military interventionism is good?

Post Reply New Topic

In the past I have met many people who think that millitary interventionism is a good idea. This thread is for those people.

Is current American foreign policy good? Are there any countries that need more American troops? Are there any countries that need less American troops? If so, name these countries.

I, personally, support non-interventionist foreign policy.

We shouldn't stop intervening until we have troops in EVERY country. Or until we've at least spread the Great American Ideals of McDonalds and Walmart to said countries. /joking

My opinion is zero. Pull our troops out. I understand Germany and Japan after WWII, but it's been many years. We should have had a 25 year withdrawal plan of all troops from said countries, but the Cold War happened. Korea's maybe the only place we should legitimately have any troops, but even then, all our troops do is delay the inevitable. A united Korea would be good, but it'd also be bad for the entire rest of Asia. Korea and Japan still have plenty of bad blood with eachother, and if Korea became united, it'd be an Asian superpower due to the North's resources. Nobody in Asia wants a United Korea for that reason. Another problem the Northern leaders have is they still have plenty of bad blood with Japan. A United Korea PROBABLY would go to war with Japan, just for payback. In Korea most senior citizens old enough still speak Japanese, for example. So in a situation like reuniting Germany, you'd have a bunch of war hungry leaders from the North being part of the new united government, and I do believe many people from the South would wanna go along with such a war. Even without war, a united Korea would easily overtake Japan and possibly even China in the technological and developmental sectors.

So Asia might be the only place we wanna keep troops to maintain world peace, mind you we could have just not intervened with the Korean war (and also not intervened in WWI, if we didn't intervene in WWI, I'm willing to say there'd probably be no WWII) and not had a gigantic clusterf**k waiting to occur, but in this case, what's done is done, and we need to deal with the consequences of our actions, so yeah.

I dunno, really. I support the ideology behind not having troops in other countries, but in the case of, say, Korea and Japan, there's a pretty good reason for it, in that it keeps like, all of Asia stable basically. So...

Fighting international nuisances like the Somoli Pirates is about the only thing I can think of.

In the future we may have to deal with N. Korea trying to enter space.

I really think for the most part Military intervention only has a place in international zones like the Ocean or Space or perhaps in CyberSpace.

There's a really simple test. It's so simple that I bet every little child immediately comes up with it. Strangely, it is never used in real life.

Here is the test:

In the olden days invading stuff didn't have to be justified.

My feelings are mixed.

I don't mind current placements of US forces, save a few places. Bases in Saudi Arabia, East Africa, Kuwait, Diego Garcia, and the Pacific are very useful in rapid response situations, though many bases, such as those in England and Western Europe, we could do without. The US is maintaining a very flimsy yet relatively balanced system of power and projection. Not nearly as much as they boast, but still a good system nonetheless.

I think intervention in Libya in 2011 was pointless, the Iraq War was pointless and immoral (not so say war is ever really "moral"), and I'm glad we're pulling out of Afghanistan, Afghanistan not being a worthwhile effort since the Taliban regained ground in 2007 (though the initial war did succeed in ousting al-Qaeda from the country, more or less). I doubt peacekeepers are as necessary in the Balkans as they were 13 years ago, and likewise see little point in keeping people there either.

As far as "interventionist" policies go, I think they can be useful when used correctly. But the fact is they aren't. Every war the United States and its allies have entered since Korea has been grossly misguided, save the Gulf War, which itself failed to do away with Saddam Hussein when it had the chance. The Afghanistan War may have pushed the Taliban and al-Qaeda out of that country in 2001-02, but it didn't incapacitate them, which is why the Taliban only had to rearm in Pakistan and return to fight in 2006 or 7, leading to the tangled mess we're pulling out of now. If we're going to liberate, secure, occupy, or whatever it is we want to do in all these countries, we need to strike hard and fast from the beginning, not "build-up", limit ourselves, or allow less capable military's do it for us for the sake of image (as was the case in Afghanistan. See "Afghan Northern Alliance").

Interventionism as a principle is also a very dangerous policy. Again, the immediate effect of interventionism may be useful for those countries it affects. But the long term effects cause severe resentment of invading powers. For example, the misguided continuation of the war in Vietnam gave the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong all the more reason to remove the US from their country. And not to mention Osama bin Laden claimed that it was US placement of troops in Saudi Arabia, what he called "holy ground", and the Gulf War that inspired him to make the call for Jihad that led to the 9/11 attacks.

I don't think interventionism is an overall wrong, but I do think that until the US DOD can pull their inflated head from their ass, learn from their mistakes, and learn to fight wars effectively, we should stay much closer to home. I also think that the threat to our country or our ally(s) needs to be much greater than it has been before considering military action.

EDIT: Oh yeah, unless it's a blatant genocide like Nazi Germany or 1990s Somalia, if the people in a "country of interest" don't want you there, it's not worth it.

It's worthwhile looking into the foundation of Diego Garcia (British Indian Ocean Territory). It's a shameful piece of British and American history, for sure.

What does military intervention accomplish other than more bloodshed? It's counterproductive and makes us less safe. Not to mention we can't afford it, if it's so invaluable then why don't these other countries like Germany or France or whoever take an equal load? It is not America's responsibility to police the world, we have too many problems here at home. We can accomplish so much more with simple diplomacy and leading by example.

Phase 1: military occupation

Phase 3: make profits

I think traditional methods of intervention such as troop deployment are being replaced by drones. We've already used them against Taliban networks operating out of Pakistan. Biometric technology makes it possible to identify someone through facial recognition, gait recognition, and various other biometric data. Drones themselves are already cheaper than ground vehicles and the technology is only going to improve.

I don't see a need for military intervention when were not under a major threat or when diplomacy can get better results. But if we ever have a group like al Qaida attack us again, we'd likely use drones to disrupt their operations.

Military intervention is a good idea sometimes, depending....
If we have a big stick it helps to walk around other peoples' neighborhoods and thump upstarting problems on the head before those problems grow into something that threatens our neighborhood.

If I had it my way we (the USA) would use military intervention sparingly but when committed it would be swift, harsh, and unflinching.
The most terrifying thing in the world, bar none, should be the threat of US military intervention. That threat, if real, will keep things quiet.
We actually do live in a world that understands force and needs that kind of heavy handedness to keep peace.
Having established that we might as well bite the bullet and pay to keep a pack of eager and willing big dogs at the ready.
Isolationism doesn't seem to work for us in reality.

Stops being good when the countries your defending funnel what was their military spending into welfare state giveaways and end up having even worse financials than you do.

Under my plan there wouldn't be any of that s**t. They either hold up their end or find themselves completely bereft of our support.
We'd only have to do that once or maybe twice to make an effective and lasting example.

Military action should be taken on when there is a real danger to our nation.

Unfortunately our lords and masters in Washington have been fighting the Forever War in order to keep our economic pot boiling. This has led them to wrack up unsustainable deficits and debt and this will, in the not too distant future come back to haunt us, and perhaps even destroy our economy.

ruveyn

For military intervention, most of the time places need to either get nuked or we need to dig in and build a perimeter around a place and let the savages destroy each other.

It's important, I think, to be super cautious and reluctant about entering into any military action outside our borders. But once begun, we have an obligation to leave those situations carefully and with the right timing, to help ensure the best results for the civilian populations in those places.